The Best of the Literary Internet, Every Day

Navigating an unsteady ground with ease: On Warsan Shire, Lemonade, and the ties between poetry and music. | Pitchfork

I have come to talk to you about the future: Enrique Vila-Matas on Rock n’ Roll, anti-artists, and finding his way into a new book. | Music & Literature

“[Jacqueline] Susann’s representation of drugs was unrepentant, insistent, and determined to demonstrate the ubiquity of drug taking for women at the time.” Looking back at the bestselling cult classicValley of the Dolls, 50 years after its publication. | Broadly

“I just object when anyone gets too comfortable in a tradition and neglects to question all of its conventions every time they set out to do anything.” Karan Mahajan interviews Adam Ehrlich Sachs. | Bookforum

John Ashbery answers some “human being” type questions about being an art critic, crushes on boys, and the presence of “it.” | The Brooklyn Rail

“The question of what posture to take toward our own pain is unexpectedly complicated.” Parul Sehgal on the narratives of survivors of sexual abuse. | The New York Times

“There seems to be less and less underground. And what it’s replaced by is this very professional, shiny, happy plastic version of literature.” Jessa Crispin on the closing of Bookslut. | Vulture

What killed Chris McCandless, and is he worthy of admiration? Jon Krakauer provides an update to Into the Wild. | Galleys

My brain has not returned to normal: Claire Kilroy on motherhood, writer’s block, and postpartum jealousy. | Winter Pages

“I seem to have gone to dances and been photographed in pretty dresses, and also as a pom-pom girl. I seemed to have been a bridesmaid rather a lot. I seem always to have been ‘the editor’ or the ‘president.’” Some notes on California by Joan Didion. | NYRB

Karl Ove Knausgaard on being a “cultural man,” reading women, and writing an almost evil book. | Men’s Journal

More complicated than a flowering of one eccentric and filthy man’s erotic imagination: On John Cleland’s (very) erotic novel, Fanny Hill. | The Paris Review

“This year I’m going to put on a big outfit and go to a party.” Zadie Smith on attending the Met Ball and what we can expect from her next novel (“tap dancing, black women, money, poverty, sadness and joy”). | Refinery29

And on Literary Hub:

Lydia Millet on bad B&Bs, writing as a single-parent, and the presidential elections.